...when
the petitioners turned to Cnaan Media and asked to purchase significant
advertising space, the latter refused, claiming that the company does not
advertise pictures of women in Jerusalem for fear that radical elements will
vandalize the buses.

Activists against exclusion of women from the
public sphere in Jerusalem petitioned the High Court of Justice yesterday,
demanding that they be allowed to run ads featuring photographs of women on
buses in the capital.

The petition was submitted after
Cna'an, the company in charge of advertising on Egged buses in Jerusalem, refused
to accept a campaign that featured photos of women with the slogan,
"Jerusalemites, pleased to meet you."

Despite
adamant statements by various Knesset members against radical religious groups'
demand to impose segregation between the sexes in the public sphere in Israel,
it seems that the House itself is not completely free of it: Ynet learned
Tuesday that women have been practically barred from singing in Knesset
ceremonies.

It is the first time the festival screened a
Haredi film and invited only women, possibly insulting male moviegoers.

Three
years ago the festival withdrew “Greytowers” based on the women-only
restriction, for fear of discriminating against male patrons. In response,
Garbose held protest screenings at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center located
across the street from the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

“We can’t advertise a public screening and not
allow half our public to attend,” Daniella Tourgeman, the festival’s curator,
said at the time.

One of the
participants told Ynet that "the army's orders come before anything else,
and in cases of a dilemma or difference between the Halacha and a commander's
order, we explain to the soldiers that the order comes first, regardless of
whether it's an exercise or an operational activity, a ceremony or an event
which includes women performers."

One the other hand, he added, "it's absurd
that there are many religious soldiers in the army, and more and more haredim
are expected to enlist while there is no consideration in cases of
non-operational or unofficial events.

"The
same oversight that occurred in Beit Shemesh will not occur in the IDF,"
Brig.-Gen. and IDF rabbi Rafi Peretz wrote to IDF officials, referring to the
recent series of extremist religious assaults and verbal attacks against women
in the flashpoint town near Jerusalem.

The singing of women in the IDF was also discussed in the
meeting, and IDF officials reiterated the new instructions handed by the IDF
chief that all soldiers, including religious cadets, must attend official
ceremonies, including those which feature women singing.

However, religious cadets can choose whether to attend
informal IDF events in which women sing.

Rachel
Levmore, Ph.D., is a Rabbinical Court Advocate, coordinator of the Agunot and
Get-Refusal Prevention Project of the Council of Young Israel Rabbis and the
Jewish Agency, and author of “Spare Your Eyes Tears” (published in Hebrew), on
prenuptial agreements for the prevention of get-refusal.

Lest one
think non-Orthodox Jews are immune to these problems, the impact of the get
issue on non-Orthodox Jews is deftly explained by Rabbi Seth Farber, who notes
that if new olim want “to open a marriage file in Israel, they will have to
provide certification from a recognized Orthodox rabbi.”

A woman who’s been
divorced will have to produce a get and in the case of the daughter of a woman
who’s been divorced, “the rabbinate will insist on seeing an Orthodox get from
the mother before they allow the daughter to open a marriage file.”

The Religious Services
Ministry is waiting for a halakhic ruling before deciding whether to allow
women to give eulogies in cemeteries, even though a ministerial committee
authorized them to do so, a ministry official said Wednesday.

"It is
unthinkable that a halakhic ruling" - a rabbinic ruling on a point of
Jewish law - "should dictate a government ministry's decision," said
Culture Minister Limor Livnat, head of the interministerial task force set up
to deal with a recent spate of ultra-Orthodox violence and discrimination
against women. "I will not allow it."

The "purity trail," the bridge built
only seven months ago at the Tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mount Meron in
the Galilee, will soon be demolished.

The bridge, designed for use by Cohanim,
or descendents of the ancient Jewish priesthood who are not allowed to come
into contact with the impurity of a grave, was constructed without the
necessary permits - even though the state encouraged its construction and even
committed to paying half the NIS 500,000 cost.

I am involved in a very exciting and challenging project
working closely with a group of Reform and Conservative rabbis as well as
Modern Orthodox feminist leaders planning a new, welcoming mikveh and education
center in the heart of Jerusalem, – recently, members of this group
toured the site and studied plans.

…I am consulting with
Rabbi Haviva Ner David, who directs a mikveh and education center modeled on
Mayyim Hayyim, at Kibbutz Hannaton in the North, and I have just begun
talking with people at Kibbutz Ketura in the South who plan to open a new
mikveh within the year.

…I recently made a
presentation to the New Israel Fund’s Mikveh Round Table, women leaders
concerned with the current state of mikveh in Israel. This group is focused on
the training, compensation, and rights of the mikveh attendants as well as the
rights of the individuals seeking to immerse.

There can be no status quo with the haredi
community doubling in size every six years or so, soon five, then four, and,
like the plant in The Little Shop of Horrors, soon become insatiable.
The state will not be able to support the phenomenon, and the haredim, already desperately
poor, will become poorer, and more dependent.

Nothing
here is standing still, which is what the term “status quo” implies. Instead
there is a dynamic where the numbers are changing rapidly, accelerating and
perpetuating a gross social and economic injustice, eating away at the heart of
the nation.

There are however
issues on which no “live and let live” middle ground is possible.

When the democratic
norms of the state come in conflict with religious practice it is religion that
must bend. The obvious presenting example is gender equality.

If the state
establishes a single standard for the treatment of its citizens and the
education of its children no religious community can opt out of that principle
or standard. To allow such to happen would deny to women and girls the tools
and the opportunity to freely choose their own lifestyle and fate.

[T]he concept of Jewishness is beginning to break down and to
be deconstructed.

Will we be able to solve the problem? The first step toward
doing so involves acknowledging the very idea that troubles the Jewish community,
obviously in Israel, but probably no less in the Diaspora: admitting that
today, at least in Israel, the designation "Jew" is primarily, or
even exclusively, political in meaning, and that it should be treated
accordingly.

Rabbi Michael Melchior, a former minister and
Meimad party leader who has also served as the chief rabbi of Norway for thirty
years, is being mentioned as one of the candidates for the post of chief rabbi
of Britain.

A senior
executive in a Jewish organization, who asked to remain anonymous, said this
week that "Melchior combines a solid Orthodox background with a track
record of standing up to the more fanatical elements of Orthodoxy and working
harmoniously with the Reform and Liberal movements.

The members of Havura
Ma’aleh Adumim, the first and only egalitarian, pluralistic congregation in the
city outside Jerusalem welcomed its first Torah with a touching service
including dancing and singing outdoors, a candle-lighting for Hanukka and the
ceremonial eating of some gourmet sufganiyot (donuts) from the local Neeman
bakery.

It is
obvious that as long as Israel continues to have an official Chief Rabbinate
(which is anything but modern Orthodox) and grants it exclusive religious
power, the Masorti Movement will be forced to work under legal and fiscal
impediments.

This is a great pity, because this third way, to use Frankel’s
term, could prove meaningful to many Israelis who are looking for a pathway
into Judaism and are not finding it in the “official” religion of Israel.

What
a shame that Israel remains the only country in the free world where one brand
of Judaism, and only one, can function freely and legally.

Fortunately, it is not often that international Jewish
organizations make such egregious decisions, that you sit-back, scratch your
head, and wonder ‘what-ever were they thinking?’

Such was the case with the recent Chanukah candle-lighting
ceremony celebrated by B’nai B’rith World Center at the restored Hurva
Synagogue in the Old City.

A synagogue that not only places the women’s section
so high up opera glasses are helpful to see what is taking place, but has a
policy of not allowing women in the main beit knesset at any
time, even when no services are taking place.